Hundreds cared for on the Club level

Bartenders and food servers who usually staff the Qualcomm Stadium Club level have been replaced by doctors, nurses and volunteers. The decor now includes wheelchairs, cots and medical equipment.

The Club level and lounges of the stadium-turned-evacuation center have become a refuge for hundreds of nursing home residents and the elderly who have moved in since fleeing the fires that have ravaged the region.

“I've never seen so many people willing to help out,” said Jean Alaback, who with her husband, Jim, evacuated from the Remington Club retirement center in Rancho Bernardo.

Some nursing homes have moved their residents and staffs into the lounge areas, and cots and wheelchairs spilled out into the hallways outside. Senior citizens living alone also found shelter in the Club level.

A seemingly endless stream of food, water and medical supplies flows to the makeshift care facility. Volunteers and health care professionals show up unannounced offering their services. And worried relatives walk the concrete hallways looking for loved ones.

Steve Boudreau searched for his second cousin, Bob Nelson, yesterday. The Rancho Bernardo retirement home where Nelson was living did not leave evacuation information on its answering machine.

“We're here by process of elimination,” Boudreau said. “We've called the home, the sheriff's, local and national Red Cross and the Office of Emergency Preparedness.”

“We'd take him home, but looks like he's better taken care of here,” Sue Boudreau said of her husband's cousin.

Many of the elderly evacuees suffer from dementia and are unaware of the situation, even though many TV sets mounted to the walls blare nonstop fire news. Other seniors eagerly await the chance to return home.

“This is the best party I've been to in a long time,” said one woman, clutching a teddy bear.

Massage therapist Judy Buline of Iowa City was in San Diego for a conference for small-business owners when the fires broke out. She headed to Qualcomm to help out and treated the seniors to neck and shoulder rubs.